


Tawang

by Annerb



Series: Bonus Materials for The Changeling and Armistice Series [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Smita Gupta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annerb/pseuds/Annerb
Summary: This is a ficlet from Smita's point of view, set shortly after the Final Battle at Hogwarts. Fits in the beginning ofpick it up, pick it all up and start again.
Series: Bonus Materials for The Changeling and Armistice Series [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586182
Comments: 12
Kudos: 223





	Tawang

May 8th, 1998 - Tawang

The hospital is often alive with a low hum of panic and fear and movement and whispers, so at first Smita doesn’t realize anything has changed. It’s not until Jiao strides into the room, a burning secret clearly sitting on her tongue ready to be spoken that Smita begins to suspect something amiss. 

“I’m working,” Smita says, making a careful note of the amount of potion she just administered to the patient. A severe case of Dragon Pox, but nothing life-threatening.

“Something’s happened in England,” Jiao says, out of breath as if she ran here. “Something big. ”

Smita and her family are hardly the only British ex-pats in Tawang, though still a tiny minority among the residents. But the story of the fallen great power is one that has spread wide, half sick fascination, half fear of a similar fate. Dark Lords who live on after death is enough of a horror story to find purchase almost anywhere.

“Caydran came to speak of it. He may still be downstairs if you hurry.”

Smita bites down on the inside of her lip. “My shift hasn’t ended.”

Jiao shakes her head. “Suit yourself.” She disappears out the door.

“Whatever has happened has already happened,” Smita tells herself. “There is nothing you can do to change it.” 

She gave up her chance to affect anything a long time ago. Now she’ll just have to learn to live with the fallout of that decision.

She finishes tending to the child, moving on the next. Most of the trainees hate having shifts in the children’s ward. Smita doesn’t mind it, moving between child and child. She doesn’t do it to comfort, to bring smiles to people’s faces. She likes the click of solving a problem, of implementing a plan. Illness is her enemy. Sometimes it wins, but it doesn’t break her. She respects the power of her rival and never underestimates it. And any adversary worth having will kick your arse occasionally. 

It’s what allowed her to walk away from England in the first place, she thinks. And what makes her so good at what she does. She is calm in the face of other’s distracting emotions.

That doesn’t keep her from wondering.

It builds and builds in her, no matter how much she tries to ignore it. Rise above it. 

She lasts three more hours.

“Go,” her supervisor says. “I’ll cover for you.” 

Smita doesn’t argue.

In the entryway, she kicks off her shoes, switching to a solid pair of lace ups with dust-encrusted soles. She walks quickly out into the courtyard, swiping her broom from the rack. Once clear of the hospital buildings, she lifts up into the air.

In the streets below, people are shuffling from house to house, a group gathering in front of the main eatery.

Her mother doesn’t seem surprised to see her, so much as vaguely disappointed. “Your shift doesn’t end for two more hours,” she observes.

“I had to know,” Smita says.

“Even if knowing won’t change the facts?”

“Mother.”

She relents, handing over a copy of a letter. “This arrived to the village this morning.”

The letter details a battle that took place at Hogwarts between the Dark Lord and the last of those people resisting him. The Dark Lord fell. 

The Dark Lord _fell_. And didn’t get back up.

Her breath catches in her throat. It’s over. Really over. She reads through the rest of the letter, eyes greedy for details. 

The battle happened on May 2nd, over six days ago. Being isolated was always the main reason they settled here. Only now does Smita wish they weren’t so cut off.

Over fifty defenders fell at Hogwarts.

It’s another two days until a copy of _The Daily Prophet_ arrives with sensational stories of death and sacrifice and heroic victory, Harry Potter staring emotionlessly from the front cover, face rough with dirt and bruises and the shadow of a beard. HERO OF HOGWARTS, it declares him. 

Smita rips past the stories.

Nestled into one of the later pages is a small photograph of the gathering for the funeral of Caroline Fawley. Smita feels a pang in her chest as she recalls the younger student. How many more students fell? Who?

As the crowd of people budge around the image, Smita gets her first firm look at Ginny, relief blooming in her chest. There’s something severe and a little foreign about the way she holds herself, the expression on her face, but she is alive. So very alive.

No matter how much she asks the people to move around the image, she never catches sight of Tobias. She refuses to entertain any thoughts of why he might not be there.

It’s another week before comprehensive lists of the casualties make their way to the village.

She finally finds Tobias’ name on a list of people in St. Mungo’s in stable condition.

Stable. But bad enough at some point to require hospitalization.

_You let me be quiet._

At breakfast the next morning, she looks up at her stepfather and asks the question that has been burning on her tongue. “We can go back now, right?”

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “We could.”

Only there has been no discussion of returning. “But?”

“But it will still be the same place,” he tells her. “And no war will ever fully eradicate the ideas and feelings that drove us here in the first place.”

Shrieks and laughter echo in from the courtyard outside. She looks out the window to see her half-brother Arav pretending to be an airplane with the neighborhood kids. Behind them, the mountains climb up into the clouds, green and lush and protective. 

Her brother spreads his arms wide, banking hard to one side, his fingers brushing the dirt.

Not a squib or a freak or a half-breed or a desecration of wizarding blood.

Just a boy.

She looks at her stepfather and says, “I understand.”

In another month, if the peace still seems to be holding, Smita will allow herself the risk of writing Ginny a letter.

But that is all.

She will stay her course.


End file.
